Optical square waves from a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror laser  (Conference Presentation)

A. Aadhi; Anton V. Kovalev; Michael Kues; Piotr Roztocki; Christian Reimer; Young Zhang; Tao Wang; Brent E. Little; Sai T. Chu; David J. Moss; Zhiming Wang; Evgeny Viktorov; Roberto Morandotti

doi:10.1117/12.2291230

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14 March 2018 Optical square waves from a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror laser (Conference Presentation)

A. Aadhi, Anton V. Kovalev, Michael Kues, Piotr Roztocki, Christian Reimer, Young Zhang, Tao Wang, Brent E. Little, Sai T. Chu, David J. Moss, Zhiming Wang, Evgeny Viktorov, Roberto Morandotti

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Proceedings Volume 10518, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XX; 105180M (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2291230
Event: SPIE LASE, 2018, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Optical square wave sources are particularly important for applications in high speed signal processing and optical communications. In most realizations, optical square waves are generated by electro-optic modulation, dispersion engineering of mode-locked lasers, polarization switching, or by exploiting optical bi-stability and/or optical delayed feedback in semiconductor diode lasers, as well as vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs). All such configurations are bulky and cause significant timing jitters. Here we demonstrate the direct generation of optical square waves from a polarization-maintaining figure-eight nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM) configuration that uses an embedded high index glass micro-cavity as the nonlinear element. Such a NALM mimics the behavior of a saturable absorber and has been used to reach passive mode-locking of pico- and even nano-second pulses. In our method, the NALM, including a high-Q micro-ring resonator, acts as an ultra-narrowband spectral filter and at the same time provides a large nonlinear phase-shift. Previously we have demonstrated that such a configuration enables sufficient nonlinear phase-shifts for low-power narrow-bandwidth (~100 MHz FWHM) passive mode-locked laser operation. Here we demonstrate the switching of stable optical square wave pulses from conventional mode-locked pulses by adjusting the cavity properties. In addition, the square wave signal characteristics, such as repetition rate and pulse duration, can be also modified in a similar fashion. The source typically produces nanosecond optical square wave pulses with a repetition rate of ~ 120 MHz at 1550nm. In order to verify the reach of our approach, we compare our experimental results with numerical simulations using a delay differential equation model tailored for a figure-eight laser.

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A. Aadhi, Anton V. Kovalev, Michael Kues, Piotr Roztocki, Christian Reimer, Young Zhang, Tao Wang, Brent E. Little, Sai T. Chu, David J. Moss, Zhiming Wang, Evgeny Viktorov, and Roberto Morandotti "Optical square waves from a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror laser (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10518, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XX, 105180M (14 March 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2291230

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